Star Dreck: Paranoia & Patriotism In Alien Invasion Films

2463 words - 10 pages

Star Dreck: Paranoia & Patriotism in Alien Invasion Films

My premise is really quite simple: aliens are among us.And they're bad.But they're not the aliens you think they are, and they're not bad for the reasons you might imagine.In order to understand who these aliens are and why they're bad I want to begin by reaching back into the dark heart of the McCarthy era, when American paranoia in its most popular incarnation as American patriotism was at its peak.The year is 1951 and the film is Howard Hawkes' The Thing: From Another World.

For those of you who have somehow come this far in your otherwise admirable education without once seeing this influencial film, a brief synopsis: a ...view middle of the document...

We might see in Carrington an enthusiasm for other ways of thinking and being taken to suicidal extremes, a sort of multicultural mania.

The soldiers, on the other hand, understand the mortal threat the Thing represents from the very beginning; in fact, they can't even stand to look at it--a deep-seated aversion which sets the plot in motion, as it causes a soldier to put a blanket over the block of ice which contains the Thing, thus melting the ice and setting it free.Throughout the film, while the intellectuals stand about debating endlessly about how to deal with the Thing, the soldiers resolutely do what is necessary to first exclude the alien from their midst, and then annihilate it, without wasting a moment worrying about whether the Thing and its culture are worth getting to know.As their commander says at the end, he doesn't want "any part of it."

In traditional readings of this film, the Thing is seen as a stand-in for our fear of Communism as a de-humanizing ideology, a system which made people into unfeeling, replaceable, souless plants.But I find this argument unconvincing.After all, the Thing does not represent the real threat in this film; rather, that distinction goes to Dr. Carrington, the intellecutal, who works at every turn to betray his fellow Americans because he believes in the superiority of the Thing and its culture.At most the Martian represents brute strength, while Carrington embodies the cunning arrogance of deceptive rhetoric and ideological fervor, which I would argue are the true trademarks of the demonized Communist.While the intellectual carrot, as the reporter Scotty calls it, is an enemy the American soldiers can understand, it is Dr. Carrington who is the true alien to them.As Margaret Sullivan, the commander's love interest and Dr. Carrington's secretary puts it, "he doesn't think the way we do."Thus, not only is Carrington saddled with the blame for creating nuclear weapons, but his desire to understand foreign ideas is figured as inherently fanatical, dangerous, crazy--and, most importantly, traitorous.Lastly, I would point out that Dr. Carrington--with his goatee and fur hat--looks a lot more Russian than the Martian does.

Of course, much has been written about The Thing as an expression of 1950s American paranoia, especially given the last line of the film, when the reporter Scotty warns the world to "Watch the skies!Keep watching!Watch everywhere!"Clearly Scotty is heralding the coming seige mentality of the Cold War.But I believe, given Carrington's intellectually amoral commitment to selling the whole bunch of them down the river, Scotty was also warning his fellow Americans to keep their eyes peeled closer to home; to watch not just the skies, but their neighbors.The American paranoid of the 1950s understood that the real threat to American ideology wasn't the brute strength of the Red Army, but the theorized tendency of certain intellectual internationalists to misread the mentality behind...

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,
friendship, honour and patriotism. I think this kind of morality might
be a
bit old-fashioned but I think it's worth trying for because there is a
lot
good things in the past. People were a lot more caring about each
other,
they knew how to respect each other and they use to love their family
and
their country and somehow that changed. I like to bring back all those
good
old things in the films

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i’ve watched 2001 along with other Kubrick films over ten times and as a prime of what I state of what my interpretion of the monolith it would be useful to highlife some details, one of them being that there are no aliens in the movie and there is no dialogs specifically describing dialogs. this is as close as we get “18 months ago the first evidence of intelligent life off the earth was discovered.” The briefing scene on the moon contains no

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genocide.
The graphic novel series Watchmen is also quite critical of America during the Cold War. In Watchmen, Richard Nixon is in his fourth term as President, and nuclear war with Russia is becoming more and more likely. In order to maintain peace on earth, one of the characters simulates an alien invasion. The idea was that America and Russia would never resolve their problems and destroy the world, unless they could find a common enemy

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emphasizes the audiences understanding of the pervasive nature of voyeurism, the destructive power of paranoia, and the illusion of security.
The editing of the final scene, although perhaps the least notable of the four aspects, still plays an important role in heightening the tension of Caul’s downfall. The first half of the scene consists primarily of longer, steady cuts, allowing the tension to simmer before it explodes. It is not until Caul

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In a galaxy far, far away… racism existBy Domenico MisceoFinal: MulticulturalismMarch 14th 2012Wodziak` The movie I chose to relate to our multiculturalism class was Star Wars; while this may seem trivial I will show how a seemingly innocent movie contains prevalent racial themes. Although most of the racial themes throughout the movies are abstracted notions that underlie characters and scenes, they exist and can been seen in every one

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film, photographs, and text available for use. Dead actors like Fred Astaire and John Wayne appear in new commercials for vacuums and beer. The 3-season experimental child Star Trek grows up and has innumerable progeny that can parody its 1950's vision of the future. In a cultural environment based on the marketable, malleable tastes of postmodern consumers, what sells, is artistically viable. To make a movie out of the TV series Lost In Space

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something nearly impossible to reach, something only reached in a dream. Many Americans don’t feel the depth of America; they see problems in the government, problems in their jobs, and problems in their lives. But for those outside our borders, it is a life of perfection. Two of the most important parts of our nation are the patriotism we share and the rights our forefathers have granted us. Words cannot express the love and appreciation I have for

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America. Some of these films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) portray the infiltration of society by aliens a.k.a Communists, and how only the people who are weary of the outsiders and posses a sense of paranoia of what is happening around them survive. This can be interpreted as the idea that one should always be on the look out for Communism in society and should be quick to take action. Other films dealt with the idea of

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from space, these films are not that similar. But there are a couple noticeable resemblances. The first of which is that they both employ a government cover-up. Independence Day’s version of a cover-up played on the real-life superstitions many people have of the secret military installation known only as Area 51, in the film not even the president of the United States was aware of the base or the existence of an alien space ship in the United

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light and shadow, oblique camera angles, and the ways characters are placed in unconventional or awkward positions with particular shots. (Conrad, 2006, pp1-8)
Themes that characterize Film Noir include inversions of traditional values, the feeling of alienation, paranoia, presence of crime and violence, and the feelings of despair, fear, mistrust and loss of innocence. (Conrad, 2006, pp1-8)
Many argue on whether or not film noir is a genre

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world. A film that would change the way people act, think, and live. A cinematic adventure that would do more than just entertain the audience for an hour and thirty-one minutes. A film with a name would be known throughout the globe, Star Wars. The first Star Wars movie spawned forth a universe in which fans dreamed they could become a part of. Despite all of its box office success, the greatest accomplishment of the Star Wars universe, was the

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